Ford was arrested Wednesday and booked with second-degree cruelty in connection with the incident. He also was booked with charges related to outstanding warrants Thursday. Ford is in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna in lieu of more than $100,000 bond.

According to an arrest report, Ford admitted to detectives that he shook the child after she fought with another child over a toy Monday. The report also said that Magee blamed Ford after initially saying the child only fell down. The girl suffered a seizure during the incident and was rushed to Children's Hospital in New Orleans. A doctor at the hospital contacted the Sheriff's Office after determining the girl had blood around her brain, retinal hemorrhaging and bruises. Those symptoms were consistent with shaken baby syndrome, authorities said.

But, Magee said she heard the entire incident because she was in a bathroom adjacent to her living room on Helen Street while Ford and another man watched her daughter play with another child. When Magee left the bathroom, she asked about the noise and why her daughter had been moved to the kitchen. She said Ford told her about the fight, and he separated the two children.

When Magee went into the kitchen her daughter was crying and alert. However, when Magee began to question her, the girl had a seizure and paramedics were called.

Magee said doctors initially told her that the blood on the child's brain might have been there for weeks or days, but later told police a different story. She said the doctors said the injuries could have been caused by a fall or car accident, but that also changed when police arrived. She questioned how her child could have been so severely injured and facing brain damage when she is walking and talking with no ill effects.

"(Doctors) have been in and out of the room and they told me that she's fine," Magee said. Children's Hospital declined to comment on the incident citing federal patient privacy laws.

Magee said that when detectives questioned her, they immediately focused on Ford as a suspect because of his criminal history. They questioned Magee and Ford separately for hours, and then lied to them in an attempt to elicit a confession, she said. Magee said she never told detectives Ford shook her baby, or that the child was injured from falling to the floor.

"It's not true at all," Magee said about the police report. "I never told them nothing like that."

She said the witness who was in the home also denied that Ford shook the child, and she wonders why police didn't ask more questions about how and when the child could have been injured given the differing accounts from physicians.